Archers, are they worth it?

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Is it worthwhile to make a archer for your party? Do you multi-class him later?

 

Very worthwhile. They're almost too powerful (almost). I wouldn't dual-class him at all, and I don't believe you can unless you use Shadowkeeper or something. The only thing you could dual him to would be a Cleric, and there's little point in that since the archer would have the ability to cast priest spells long before you'd want to consider a dual anyway. Stick with a pure one - mages don't stand a chance.

 

So taking out Mages their main worth?

 

Archers are truly deadly. With grandmastery plus their bonus to hit with bows you can decimate hordes of enemies almost effortlessly. I rarely used called shot, mostly because I didn't need to, but it can be devestating. I don't think I would want to solo an archer but if you put a couple of tanks up front they will stand there looking dumb while your archer kills almost everything. If you really want to you can give your archer boots of speed and do hit and runs but tanks work really well with archers.

No, I would say killing anything that moves is an archer's main worth.

 

Cool, thanks for the 411.

 

No, but it certainly helps. They do very decent damage at higher levels, with many attacks per round and a super-low thac0. They're excellent back-up characters for your front-line fighters, and they never have to get in the thick of the action if you're careful. That makes them great as protagonists.

That said, when fighting a group that has a spellcaster (a cleric, druid or mage), having your archer pelt them repeatedly so they can't cast their spells is one of the best tactics in the game. If a mage can't cast his spells, he ceases to be a threat to anyone. And with the damage an archer can do, your average mage will be dead in a few rounds worth of archer arrows anyway.

Tip: though it's tempting to specialize in long bows, pick a short bow instead. There are better shortbows in the game than there are longbows. You'll get enough proficiency points over the coarse of the game that you'll eventually be able to gain grand mastery in more than one missile weapon if you like. Melee weapons I recommend are the Spear or Two-handed sword.

 

And with White Dragon Scale, their AC is nothing to sneeze at either. Add Improved Haste or Greater Whirlwind and you've got a machine gun!

 

I shudder to think what Improved Haste + Critical Strike would do... maybe it's time to try out the Archer kit.

 

I've been trying out the archer kit these last few days and I have to say that it exceeds all my expectations. She has an average experience value of about 57% !

She's currently using the tuigan bow and kicks major ass. I wonder up to how much damage an archer can do with the best ranged weapons in the game.

 

What is the best ranged weapon in the game? gesen bow?

 

oh no!

(/me rolls saving throw vs. going through BG again as an archer...)

 

Without the item upgrade mod, yes, Gesen is the best, because you can use arrows in it, and you get all the damage from the arrows on top of the magic and electrical damage from the bow. The crossbow in ToB (can't remember the name) is actually slightly higher per hit, but you can fire a short bow one more time per round than a crossbow, so on a per round basis the Gesen wins out.

However, there may be one that beats it out, and that would be the sling of seeking, as it adds a strength bonus. A +4 sling stone in that thing, given to a halfling fighter with 5 *s in slings and a girdle of giant strength MIGHT be able to out damage Gesen. I never actually did the math on it, but it might be possible. Again, it would have to be considerably more damage than Gesen, because again the rate of fire with a short bow is 1 more attack per round than with a sling.

 

WARNING: There is one downfall to playing as an Archer: I found it kind of boring. You essentially have the same attack method and same weapon throughout the entire game. I found that, despite my kicking major ass, I was bored silly by the end of the game. Even in a game where I created a dream-team party (my favorite NPC's and self-created characters to fill in the gaps), I found my archer to be the character I enjoyed the least.

/me invokes Laches' catch phrase.

Your mileage may vary.

 

Non HLA-wise, I'd say the most damaging would be the Tuigan+1 or the Light Crossbow of Speed.
HLA wise, I agree with Aldeth on the Gesen.
IMO these missile weapons aren't the best though. Others like Tansheron's Bow, HeartSeeker, and the Mana Bow can make also it to the spotlight, depending on preference.

 

So this topic convinced me to create a archer and add it to my party, since i had to reinstall the game and start over . The dude motor's right from the get go. However, what is up with him not being able to use composite long bows?

 

Is your strength below 18? That's required to use a composite.

 

he might not have enough strength for composite long bows, but i don't know

EDIT: darn, Death Rabbit beat me to it

 

My archer's strength is 17. I guess that is why.

 

17 is good enough. AFAIK, all of the really magical good bows are either long bows or short bows. I can't think of any great composite long bows.

 

I have held forth on the value of Archers before. The only downside I see to them is that there are no +5 bows or arrows, so the truly high level beasties are tough to hit. But when it comes to gunning down average jerks, there is none better than an Archer with the Tuigan bow. Does the whirlwind attack really apply to ranged weapons? I'll have to try that . . .